Monday, August 20, 2007

Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, is a medical impairment with which most disability examiners are familiar (for those who aren't aware, disability examiners render medical decisions on social security disability and SSI disability claims for the social security administration and work at a state-level agency that, in most states, is called DDS, or disability determination services.

What follows is an informational background on MS:

Approximately one in every one thousand individuals,who reside in North America, Europe, and Australasia have multiple sclerosis. Conversely, individuals who reside in Africa, Asia, and South American are rarely affected by multiple sclerosis.

What is multiple sclerosis? Most physicians and scientists classify multiple sclerosis as an autoimmune disease, which attacks the central nervous system. Multiple Sclerosis affects women more often that men, and most of the affected individuals are between the ages of twenty and forty. Multiple sclerosis is classified into four types: relapsing and remitting, secondary progressive, primary progressive, and progressive relapsing.

About ninety percent of all initial cases of multiple sclerosis are relapsing –remitting. This type of multiple sclerosis is distinguished by unpredictable attacks, which may be followed by months, or even years, that are disease free. In fact, most deficits experienced during the attack resolve when the disease goes into remission.

Unfortunately, eighty percent of the initial relapsing and remitting cases will evolve into secondary progressive. Secondary progressive is the most common form of multiple sclerosis and the most debilitating.

Individuals with this form of the disease experience neurological decline between acute attacks, with no clear periods of remission. Primary-progressive only affects about 10 percent of all multiple sclerosis patients, and it is characterized by a steady neurological decline with no remissions.

The most rare type of multiple sclerosis is progressive relapsing, and individuals with the progressive relapsing form of multiple sclerosis experience continuous neurological decline with no remission and acute attacks.

There is no cure for Multiple Sclerosis, however some of types of the disease are being treated with medications such as interferon, glatiramer acetate, mitoxantrone, and natalizumab. Regrettably, primary progressive multiple sclerosis is not treatable by the above-mentioned medications.